We are a Key Stage 3 Pupil Referral Unit (soon to be KS4 too) for young people experiencing social, emotional, and mental health; in addition, we offer support and guidance for those presenting challenging behaviour in their current educational setting. The Braybrook Centre offer early interventions to those who are at risk of exclusion and cater for those who have been permanently excluded from mainstream education. As a short-term provision, our primary focus is to reintegrate young people into a permanent education provision. Our core values are based around: Support, Trust, Achieve and Respect. We work in partnership with mainstream schools, academies and other organisations to ensure the needs of our young people are met. So, to borrow from Skills Builder itself, for our students in particular these essential skills unlock learning in our classrooms, boost academic outcomes, perseverance and self belief.
It has been a real eye opener for some of our students in terms of how important these essential skills are and not just their academic achievements at the end of KS4. Staff have genuinely enjoyed delivering all aspects of these skills, as we do not prescribe the 'how' they should do it, but they fully understand and support the 'why' these essential skills are a real priority for our young people.
Every classroom has a set of the skills builder posters, proudly on display and we also have our main skills builder display prominently outside of our SLT office. This main skills builder display identifies which skill we are currently focusing on and students are often given skills builder stickers in their exercise books, across a whole range of cross-curricular subjects, when they are demonstrating that skill in their learning. In addition, a student from every form group is awarded a skills builder celebration certificate on a weekly basis during our celebration assembly. Skills achievement points have also been added to SIMS, so students can now receive achievement points for each essential skill. Medium-term planning for all subjects references essential skills. We recently ran a very successful parents' afternoon and introduced parents and carers to the essential skills. This has helped us to create a consistent language and awareness of essential skills.
Schemes of work now have a strand of skills builder explicitly running through them. Teachers are confident referencing the essential skills in curriculum lessons, and use stickers to reward students who display these in lessons. Where before we were growing and so practising a different skill on a weekly basis, we are now diving deeper in to each skill with a bi-weekly focus. Assemblies always demonstrate how the key focus links to skills builder; for example, most recently, how resilience links to staying positive. Every Wednesday and Friday our students participate in a range of extracurricular activities, from caving to hairdressing to rock climbing. We explicitly brief the instructors on the focus skill, and they encourage students to reflect on how they have used this skill during the session.
We will continue with our current format in terms of delivery, but as we merge and grow in to a full (short-stop) secondary provider (KS3 & KS4) our main focus is to upskill ALL staff in the delivery, it's importance and the benefits of skills builder for all.
